ENGL 441 Major Critics

Catalog Description: Prerequisite
or corequisite: Upper division standing is prerequisite to enrollment in English 441.
ENGL 102 or its equivalent is prerequisite to all upper division English courses.
Prerequisite for all literature courses: ENGL 250, or 200A, 200B or 200C unless otherwise stated.
Major critical approaches to literature; systems of Aristotle,
Dryden or Johnson, Wordsworth, Coleridge; a modern critic or a contemporary critical problem.

Objectives: The main objective of the course is to provide each student with a
basic understanding of the major figures in literary critical theory from Plato to the present.
In addition, we will work on becoming better readers, writers and thinkers through frequent discussions,
examinations and writing tasks. Ultimately our goal is to work on improving our ability to think
critically about texts (in whatever form we encounter them) and to communicate clearly our ideas.
Each of us must consider the acts of reading and writing as ways of making the world, of making it
cohere or come apart, of inscribing it with purpose and meaning.